Before you jump all over me for what looks like hyperbole, let me explain.
Over the years that I worked with American Indian people, I became convinced that the general public preferred their Indians confined to natural history museums, especially the plastic ones in the gift shop, next to the dinosaurs. I winced when my son went trick-or-treating with an Indian friend and the two of them encountered another child dressed up... as an Indian. I cringed when I heard stories from Indian moms about their children having to don costumes (one consisting of a plastic garbage bag decorated with construction-paper "feathers") and act as Indians in school Thanksgiving plays. I was mortified when I heard the story of a non-Indian woman approaching an Indian man to ask if she could touch the scars on his chest; she apparently thought they were from a sun dance, but really he had just been in a car accident. I was mortified when I introduced an Indian friend to an Anglo lady, who then gushed, "Oh, I just love tribes."
It's hard to be American Indian in America, but I think being a Jew is similar - in that the world likes dead Jews better than us living ones. We have different PR problems: People think Indians enjoy a pipeline to Mother Earth, yet refuse to believe the Jewish connection to the land of the Israel. Go figure.
Batya Medad explains better than I - in this essay, Are All Trees Created Equal?
(IsraelNN.com) Great news! Haven't you heard? The international public protests were successful.Here's proof that the world has a heart. The campaign to save Anne Frank's tree, the one she saw from the window of her hideout, was a success.
It reminds me of the hysteria of the idealistic Left in Israel after they discovered that some of the Jews who had been forcibly evicted from their homes in Gush Katif and northern Samaria - due to the Left-supported Disengagement - had "cruelly and irresponsibly abandoned their pet dogs." Of course, those very same "humanists" didn't think it cruel that the government had evicted those same innocent Jews from their homes, destroyed their businesses, farms, trees and gardens. Minor details, like the dog owners' being homeless - most temporarily housed in small, no-animals-allowed hotel rooms - didn't excuse them.
There were beautiful trees and gardens in the communities Ehud Olmert, Ariel Sharon and the cheering world destroyed in the name of Disengagement.
There were excellent schools in the communities that Olmert, Sharon and the cheering world destroyed in the name of Disengagement.
There were successful businesses in the communities Olmert, Sharon and the cheering world destroyed in the name of Disengagement.
Where were the international protests?
Why is that diseased tree in Amsterdam more valuable than the ones lovingly planted by Jews in N'vei Dekalim, Homesh and Atzmona II*?
Read it all. It's something to think about. Or else.
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